Permian Basin

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August 11, 2014

From Marfa Public Radio: The latest drought monitor from the USDA shows about 60% of Texas still suffering from a lack of rain and strained water resources. Lately there’s been some concern brewing in West Texas about towns, cities or landowners selling their water to oil and gas companies, and the possibility of oil and gas development in the Big Bend. [...]

June 30, 2014

When it comes to the oil and gas drilling boom in the country, Texas is king. Actually, make that crown a global one: over a quarter of all the active drilling rigs in the world are right here in the Lone Star State. The boom – taking place thanks to hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” and [...]

June 26, 2014

From KXWT West Texas Public Radio: After a special session called by Mayor Jerry Morales yesterday, the Midland City Council has delayed a planned vote over its part of the Energy Towers project in downtown Midland. The council was set to vote on whether to move forward with a $60 million incentives package for the project’s developers [...]

March 20, 2014

From the Fronteras Desk: FT. DAVIS, Texas — World-class observatories like Mount Wilsonnear Los Angeles and Palomar north of San Diego are cramped by the intrusion of urban light to once unspoiled night skies. Facing the same problem in the 1970s, scientists at Kitt Peak National Observatory south of Tucson persuaded that city and others in Arizona to pass lighting [...]

December 13, 2013

This story was produced by member station KXWT. The energy boom in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico is driving one of the nation’s fastest growing regional economies. But growth is tied to the price of oil and some prominent energy analysts suggest the price of crude will fall in 2014. Oil wells operating round the clock [...]

December 5, 2013

A lot was made this week of numbers showing record-breaking numbers for daily oil production in Texas. Those figures, from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). In September, the most recent month for the data, drillers in Texas pulled about 2.7 million barrels of oil a day from the earth, most of it from the state’s two [...]

September 27, 2013

The Midland-Odessa region in West Texas has the highest GDP growth in the country, the lowest unemployment in Texas. This is oil country, and oil is one of the most profitable products in the world. But if you ask someone what it’s like to live there, don’t be surprised to hear answer like this: “It’s [...]

September 25, 2013

The Barbershop. In movies, TV, and popular culture it’s the place people go to catch up on what’s happening. If you want to get a feel for a place, it’s hard to beat the barbershop. People are in and out all day ready to shoot the breeze. So on StateImpact Texas’ reporting trip to the [...]

September 13, 2013

From the Texas Tribune: COTULLA — At a convention center in this city 70 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, Dimmit County Judge Francisco Ponce said this week what many of the 200 people in the room were thinking. Texas Department of Transportation officials explained why the agency needed to move forward with plans to [...]